Author Topic: Help with iRobot Create Gen 1 Model 4400  (Read 10401 times)

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Offline ScottH7a9Topic starter

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Help with iRobot Create Gen 1 Model 4400
« on: April 10, 2018, 10:14:12 AM »
Hello: This is a little bit of a lengthy post and is probably asking a lot, but any help would sure be appreciated.

I have a generation 1 iRobot Create, Model 4400 to be exact. It has the optional command module which uses the Atmel ATmega 168 chip. The command module manual is here: http://www.irobot.com/filelibrary/pdfs/hrd/create/Command%20Module%20Manual_v2.pdf

The robot came bundled with WinAVR and Programmers Notepad. It also had drivers and instructions to use a USB port to communicate with the Command Module. Many years ago on a Win XP machine I built one of the example programs that came with it, was able to build and load it on the command module. Now when I try that I get errors that it can't create dependency files (The error is actually that it can't find the files but I believe the problem is they are not getting built earlier in the build process).

I am pretty ignorant about this level of programming (this close to the hardware that is), I Googled and found an AVR forum, the folks there suggested forgetting WinAVR and using Atmel Studio 7. I have installed it, I can build the example programs on my local Windows machine, but I am confused as to how this then gets transferred to the iRobot Command Module.

The Command Module has a bootloader and is supposed to handle the transfer along with the connection to the PC and the Programmers Notepad software. I'm not sure how this can be adapted to the Atmel Studio 7 or other software.

So a short version of the question would be: could anyone help me out with building and transferring a program to the Command Module (which again is an ATmega168 based device) over a USB?

Even some nudges in the right direction would be greatly appreciated. Thanks  :)